Requiescat Pace

If you want tons of green space to walk around and none of the crowd, a cemetery is your best bet.

Another day of mixing things up with Sean, starting with brekkie at Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe in Kits. Then we decided to have a wander in Vancouver’s oldest cemetery, Mountain View. The cemetery was built in 1887 and is located on Fraser Street, spanning 106 acres from 31st to 43rd avenue. There are 92,000 grave sites and 145,000 internments.

Sure, it may not be as fancy as Highgate in London, Pere Lachaise or Montmartre in Paris, but we did come across some interesting things.

The cemetery is sectioned off in some areas:

Photo credit: Jenelle Schneider

* Chinese and Japanese burials prior to 1940 were grouped together up by 41st avenue. We checked out the Chinese pavilion with 2 ceremonial burners for burnt offerings. I dared not sit down on the bench or approach the altar with 4 pineapples placed as offerings.

* The masonic section with mausoleums and 248 grave markers of Freemasons, easily identifiable by an engraved insignia

* Military graves where a lot of those buried were dated between 1914-1918 (WWI) and 1939-1945 (WWII)

* A special section for infants who died at or shortly after childbirth (we did not come across this section, which may have been a good thing. I think I would’ve been too emotional for that)

Sean and I had been to Mountain View before, but neither of us had ever seen it as a whole. Nor had we seen what had been added since its revitalization in May 2008. There were flowing fountains, modern buildings including a customer care centre, a celebration hall and operations yard, as well as, new stone columbarias for cremated remains.

The columbarias had shelves where flowers, candles and pebbles can be placed. There was also a stone table with running water for cutting and preparing flowers.

The crematorium with its 2 smoke stacks, located in the historic Masonic section, was creeping me out, even in the sunshine. I didn’t want to picture what goes on inside a crematorium. We walked around the building to check out the marble memorial wall with real and plastic flowers tucked into the flower holders.

Photo credit: Vancouver Memorial Services and Crematorium

Also giving me the shivers were the mosquitos that were having a field day making a meal out of Sean and me. Cuz we were right by the fountains. I must have had 3-4 bites on my index finger alone. The whole summer without incident. Until today. Dirty mosquitoes.

Although no one likes thinking or talking about their own mortality, it’s inescapable when spending a day at a cemetery. I still am not entirely comfortable talking about it, but I think that green/natural burials look like a wonderful option, compared to conventional burials or cremations.

Regular burial involves embalming with carcinogenic chemicals, while the process of cremation not only involves consuming about 180 litres of gas, but also releasing lead, mercury, selenium and dioxins into the atmosphere.

I kinda like the spiritual idea of no embalming, a biodegradable coffin and direct earth burial in a communal garden, so that one could go back to the earth as natural as possible and have trees and flowers planted over them, contributing to new life and creating habitat. The plantings would then become living memorials, as well as, a testament to the environment.

We all desire to have a peaceful life, so it’s only natural to have the most peaceful of endings.